Disaster Management

Fire

Fire is a very good servant, but, a very bad master. As long as fire is under our control, it serves a lot of useful purposes for us, but, once it goes out of our control, it can create a lot of destruction. However, despite the presence of fire safety measures, the occurrence of accidents is oftentimes inevitable.

It is this combination (of good servant and bad master), which is dangerous.

Because of the useful purposes that it serves, people keep sources of fire in/around their houses/workplace. And, these sources could sometimes result in "undesired" fire. Had fire been something, which serves no useful purpose – the number of incidents of fire would have been very less – as people wont keep sources of fire around them.

Thus, the occurrence of fire-related accidents is oftentimes inevitable - inspite of all the safety precautions. For this reason, an insurance policy should always be taken.

Hence, its more important to be specially careful during these periods. Not only are the chances of incidents higher, but, the chances of your local fire department being overloaded is also very high. This might have an impact on their ability to respond swiftly to your call – in case there is a need – as they could be busy fighting fire elsewhere.

These extinguishers are very costly (both in terms of money as well as impact on environment), and hence, should be used only on very costly, specialty equipments.

The working of these equipments is very simple. They simply displace the oxygen at the burning site. And, these being highly inert gases – would not take part in any chemical reaction (including the process of burning), nor would let the burning material take part in the burning process – thereby extinguishing the fire.

These kind of extinguishers can also be used on metallic fires (Class D). Other extinguishers mentioned earlier could have mixed results on Class D fire, depending on which metal is burning.